Prep girls volleyball: Redwood falls in five games to Los Altos

It took two games and a seemingly insurmountable lead to wake the sleeping Giant that was the Redwood High volleyball team. But once they were awoken, they started to crush everything in their path.

Unfortunately in this instance, the wreckage got started too late as the No. 2 seed Redwood fell to No. 3 Los Altos in five games (25-22, 25-23, 21-25, 18-25, 15-11) in Saturday's NorCal semifinal match.

When the second game ended, the air had been sucked out of a typically raucous gym in Larkspur as Redwood (40-6) trailed 2-0. That's when the Giants woke up.

"I think it hit a lot of us that this could potentially be our last game ever," Redwood's Bailey Osborn (team-high 14 kills) said. "For the nine seniors on the team it was go time, now or never."

It was go time indeed as Redwood came storming back to tie the match 2-2 after a dominant 25-18 game four win.

"Starting game three you can't let what's happened in game one and two dictate the way you're going to go," Redwood coach Katie Pease said. "We went in with a fresh mindset like we were going to start the game over. We made a few blocking adjustments and picked up our defense before a fresh slate in game five."

Redwood had jumped out to a 5-2 lead in the decisive game but the Eagles (34-6) returned to their form from the first two games and came back to put away the Giants.

"It's definitely difficult to play in this gym," Los Altos coach Peter Kim said. "They're loud and Redwood is really, really good. I think we surprised them the first two sets but they kicked our butts in the next two."

Osborn, who said she'll never forget the heart her team showed in the match, was backed by a number of great performances. Hannah Gerson added 13 kills, Sophie DiGrazia had 12 kills and 14 digs, and Sierra Dawson had 50 assists and 19 digs.

For Los Altos, it was Carmen Annevelink who had a match-high 19 kills followed by Michelle Albright and Hanna Koehler who had 10 kills each.

Los Altos is now on to face No. 1 seed Archbishop Mitty in a rematch of the CCS championship game which Mitty won in five, but twice in that meeting Los Altos had a match point.